


broke free on a saturday morning

by Anonymous



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Journalism, M/M, Mixed Media, Mystery, off-screen violence, transcript
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26181844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: My name is Edward Kaspbrak. I’m a reporter. If you’re listening to this recording, I’m probably dead.Ten years ago, the entire population of Derry vanished into thin air. Eddie is a journalist trying to unearth a conspiracy, Richie is along for the ride. An investigation in six acts.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30
Collections: Anonymous





	broke free on a saturday morning

**EDDIE**

My name is Edward Kaspbrak. I’m a reporter for the Wall Street Journal— but then again, you already know that. If you’re listening to this recording, I’m dead. Or missing, but let’s be honest. Considering the shit we’re dealing with, if I disappeared then I’m probably dead.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

Uh, this is recording number one. It's just an introduction to all that has happened with Derry, so you’re probably good to skip this if you already know what I'm talking about— if you read my article or listened to the news at least once, you're good to go. This is mostly for posterity. But if you’ve been living under a rock, then I guess this is for you.

_[EXHALES, MICROPHONE CRACKLING]_

**EDDIE**

So, as I was saying. My name’s Edward Kaspbrak. I write for the Wall Street Journal— this is pretty far from my usual beat, actually. I usually write about, uh, economic topics mostly. Politics sometimes. But I talked my editor into this and now here we are, I guess. I’ve been kind of obsessed with Derry since I was twenty-five, a full decade ago. Full disclosure, my dad was listed among the missing, in Derry, so it’s not like I’m an impartial party or anything. But I think that my being involved, somehow, gave me an edge. I really wanted to find out the truth— shit, that’s why I went into journalism in the first place, to be honest.

_[PAUSES]_

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

I just realised, I probably shouldn’t swear so much. My bad. Feel free to beep that out, whatever. Anyway, I’m a reporter, I’m thirty-six, and ten years ago I was woken up in the middle of the night by my roommate— Noelle. She was in law school at the time, and she kept very late hours at the library. She barged into my room, which she never had before, and she woke me up like, “Hey, doesn’t your dad live in Derry, Maine?” I remember how shaken up she looked. I’d told her everything about Derry, ‘cause it was such a weird town, and I jumped up in bed and asked what had happened. And she said… “It’s all over the news.” CNN was playing from the living room, really loud. They were playing the phone call. I’m gonna play it now, too.

_[THERE'S A PAUSE, THEN A DIAL TONE]_

**OPERATOR**

911 operator, what’s your emergency?

_[UNINTELLIGIBLE WHIRRING NOISES. IN THE BACKGROUND, A SHOUT]_

**OPERATOR**

Can you hear me?

**CALLER**

Yes, yes… are you there?

**OPERATOR**

Sir, what’s the nature of your emergency?

**CALLER**

I’m in Derry, you’ve gotta get down here. You need to get here _right now_. An ambulance—

_[YELLING IN THE BACKGROUND]_

**CALLER**

Get the police here too. Right now— they’re grabbing people from their beds… my wife. Please!

**OPERATOR**

Sir, I need you to remain calm. Can you tell me what—

**VOICE FROM THE BACKGROUND**

What you doing? Turn that OFF. Turn that—

_[CLICK]_

**OPERATOR**

Sir? Are you there?

**EDDIE**

So, yeah. That was the call. Emergency services got to Derry about twenty minutes after that— it’s not like they could’ve gotten there earlier. That town was designed to be in the middle of f— in the middle of nowhere. It was, technically speaking, a research facility, entirely owned by Blackrock Corporation and, yes, that’s a real name. Ownership details are pretty opaque, and I know what I’m talking about. Seventy percent of Blackrock is owned by Limited Investments, also a real name, legally based in the British Virgin Islands. The investigation went absolutely f— it went nowhere. I don’t say this often but, as far as corporations go, Blackrock’s pretty shady. We don’t know _what_ they were researching, we don’t know how much progress they made or who was really footing the bill. Building Derry cost an estimate one point three billion dollars, and many of the people involved were top researchers in their fields. I can tell you that my dad came out of retirement for this, and he wasn’t the only one. Called me one Saturday afternoon and said he was moving to Maine, that the project was too huge to pass out on.

_[LAUGHS, BITTERLY]_

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

I asked my dad what kinda project it was— he’d been a surgeon before he retired, orthopaedic. Dad said he couldn’t tell me, he’d signed an NDA. I thought it was kinda shady, that whatever it was couldn’t be worth all the secrecy, but then my dad said he’d be moving to Derry by himself, without my mother. So I said— I said, “Hell yeah. Take the job!”

Uh. I never got on with my mom, you see. She’s dead now, so I can say— I’m not gonna go into details, but I always thought the only reason my parents didn’t divorce, back when I was a kid, was because of me. It weighed on me. My dad was never happy at home and when I went off to college I kept expecting he'd leave any day, but he still stayed with my mom. They moved to Florida together.

Then he got this supposedly amazing offer for this unspeakable super-secret project all the way up in Maine. I grew up in Maine, actually, and my mom fucking hated it there— sorry, that slipped, but anyway. She said she wouldn’t be moving back. As soon as I found that out, I told my dad he should go to Derry right away. I encouraged him to do it, even if it meant I saw him, like, three times in the two years the project was running. And then… that night.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

By the time emergency services arrived—

_[DOOR OPENS. NOISE OF SURPRISE]_

**RICHIE**

Oh, I thought you were out.

**EDDIE**

I’m doing some work.

**RICHIE**

Are you on a call? I thought— Oh. Are you recording that?

**EDDIE**

Yes.

**RICHIE**

Is this about Derry?

**EDDIE**

Yes. I’m making— I’m gonna make a Dropbox folder with all the files for this stuff, you know, recordings of all the interviews and photographs and documents. All downloadable. And I’m gonna give the link to Nia, you know, just in case—

**RICHIE**

In case you have an accident.

**EDDIE**

Yes.

_[INHALES]_

**RICHIE**

Well, shine on you crazy diamond. Who am I to lecture you on paranoia. Uh, hi everyone, Eddie’s editor, people of the United States. I’m Richie— Richard Tozier.

**EDDIE**

As you will know from my article. The follow-up is coming out in tomorrow’s edition.

**RICHIE**

Eds, I don’t know how to break this to you, but not everyone’s gonna read your article. Most people just watch TV.

**EDDIE**

This is Dr Tozier and yes, he’s always like this. He— well, he could probably help with what I’m about to say, actually. Pull up a chair.

_[FAINT NOISE OF CHAIR LEGS SCRAPING THE WOODEN FLOOR]_

**EDDIE**

On the night of May 27th, 2009, emergency services arrived in Derry, quickly followed by a flurry of local reporters. They were denied entry.

**RICHIE**

Good ol’ Bobby Gray.

**EDDIE**

Derry had its own security forces. Dressed all in black, carrying tactical gear, armed to the teeth. It was obvious _something_ was going on inside Derry—

_[RICHIE LAUGHS. IT’S NOT A NICE SOUND]_

**RICHIE**

You could say that.

**EDDIE**

There were shouts from inside the gated walls, what sounded like people screaming. Flashes of a bonfire. More yelling. And then— quiet.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

The police tried going in again, again they were denied entry. All noise from the town had stopped, but those black-ops people were still guarding the gate— there was only one main gate in Derry, you see. No one went in, no one went out. And then, after three days, the sun came up and the gate was open. And the town was completely empty.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

According to the manifesto released during the Congressional hearing, there had been three hundred and twenty-nine people in Derry. One hundred fifty-four men, one hundred forty-seven women, and twenty-eight children. And they all disappeared.

It was… eerie. Everything was left as it had been— clothes, cars, personal computers. Lights were still on, phones plugged in to charge. A couple homes still had their stoves on. If you aren’t familiar with the aftermath of Derry, this is a good moment to check out the pictures in my Dropbox— there’s a folder labelled ‘Aftermath’. You’ll see what I’m talking about. It was a ghost town.

It's been years, and we all know what happened, but I still can't wrap my mind around… it sounds insane. These had been people with well-established careers, families, lives outside Derry. The families of the missing, we kept expecting them to reappear somewhere. That many people couldn’t just be _gone_.

_[VOICE BREAKS]_

**EDDIE**

Uh. Anyway, they pretty clearly _were_ gone, and searches turned out nothing. They looked into the sewers, the only other way to leave the town, but they opened into a swamp and there was no way to search for traces from there.

And, Richie’s looking like he’s dying to make a crack about something, so I’m just gonna let him. Yes?

**RICHIE**

Nothing. It’s just… Derry had some really huge sewers, you see. It was a catastrophic city planning failure. Deeply ironic, in a way.

**EDDIE**

How so?

**RICHIE**

I don’t know how much— you get around to explaining about Blackrock yet? Robert Gray?

**EDDIE**

Not much.

**RICHIE**

Okay, so. Doctor Robert Gray, Bob, he was the head of the project. The lead researcher. He was the one who secured the funding— and Derry was a fu— uh, a very expensive project. Billions of dollars.

**EDDIE**

You said he was the lead researcher. _What_ was he researching?

**RICHIE**

What we were all researching. The sales pitch, back in the early stages, was something like “a study with the purpose of gaining a full understanding of the human brain.”

**EDDIE**

That’s enlightening.

**RICHIE**

Yeah, yeah. Vague as hell, I know. And— pretty arrogant, too. A ‘full understanding’, that’s a tall order. The human brain is incredibly complex, and saying you're going to understand _everything_ about it is… but Dr Gray was always pretty arrogant, and very, very charismatic. Charismatic enough to pull it off.

**EDDIE**

Dr Robert Gray was widely hailed as a neuroscience prodigy. When he first pitched his project for Derry, he described the town as an ideal place for the brightest minds in the world to thrive. Again, nearly anyone who came on board with the project had left prestigious positions to do so, moved halfway through the town or the globe, came out of retirement or left families behind. It was an enormous undertaking.

**RICHIE**

It really was. That contributed to it— there was a real sense in the air that we were doing something amazing, contributing to a monumental project. There was a lot of talk about how Derry involved some of the smartest minds in the world, some serious money thrown at it, some serious preening. I’m not gonna deny it, it felt nice to be courted.

**EDDIE**

When construction of Derry was completed, the press release said, and I quote: “We want this town to be a place that researchers and their families want to live. A place where work, family and fun come together for the betterment of the world.”

**RICHIE**

Like a nerdy theme park.

**EDDIE**

What were you saying earlier? About the sewers.

**RICHIE**

Ah, that. You never visited Derry, right?

**EDDIE**

No. People external to the project weren’t allowed inside.

**RICHIE**

For the most part. They brought in plumbers a few times.

**RICHIE (CONT’D)**

See, a lot of money went into the building of Derry. At the time… back when everything happened, the town had about three hundred people in it, but it had been built to house up to two thousand. The roads were well-kept, the homes were lovely. And the entire place stank like a septic tank whenever it rained.

_[INCREDULOUS LAUGH FROM EDDIE]_

**RICHIE**

I swear. Uh, you know what sewer gas is? I don’t, honestly, I don’t really know how it works, but I know that Derry was built in the middle of nowhere, and all those shiny pretty new homes had a top-notch drainage system that hooked up to some nasty old sewers, and it always smelled awful after it rained. Not as much in the homes, but the streets really stank. Residents protested, obviously. Blackrock and Gray brought someone to see to it, and after the first six months or so it got better, but it was always kind of smelly when it rained a lot. I always thought it said something about us— the brightest minds in the world, so obsessed with our own cleverness, living in our gorgeous model town that rotted under our feet.

**EDDIE**

Poetic.

**RICHIE**

Thank you. I’m touched.

**RICHIE (CONT’D)**

Anyway, yes, the sewers were pretty large. They did a lot of maintenance work and yes, you could absolutely leave Derry just by walking through the sewers, but as Eddie said, it opened up in a swampy field. If you were running a search operation, those sewers were a dead end.

**EDDIE**

And when law enforcement finally got into the town, they couldn’t find a trace for anyone. Except Robert Gray.

**RICHIE**

What was left of him.

**EDDIE**

Precisely. They found a body in the town square, dental records were… a partial match. Part of the skull was bashed in. It, uh. It looked like he’d been bludgeoned to death.

_[A LONG PAUSE]_

**EDDIE**

I’m sorry.

**RICHIE**

‘m fine. I never liked him, anyway, it was just— yeah.

**EDDIE**

So, Robert Gray was dead. But that still left most of the residents of Derry unaccounted for— three hundred twenty-eight people, vanished into thin air. The story made national news, of course, hell, it was on the news all over the world. But the years went on and no one reappeared, and so Derry… slipped from our minds. There were documentaries about it, pulp novels and even a Netflix show—

**RICHIE**

Wasn’t very good, if you ask me.

**EDDIE**

—a Netflix show that Richie doesn’t think was that good, that ran for two seasons, and at least three TV movies. But no serious investigative efforts were made even as we got closer to the tenth anniversary of the Vanishing, as news outlets all over the world took to calling it. So I pitched this story to my editor.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

I know I wasn’t the only one. Buzzfeed had a long form editorial on the Derry Vanishing that came out last May, the NYT did a few pieces, hell, even El Pais did. But I guess that, with my dad being involved, when I said on Twitter I was doing research for a piece, a few months ago, several families that had lost loved ones in Derry reached out to me.

And then something happened.

**EDDIE (CONT’D)**

A few months ago, two weeks before my original article was supposed to drop, I received a call from a man claiming to be a Derry survivor. He called himself Robin. He said he wanted to talk, and that he’d talk to me exclusively. So I— I drove across the country to meet him.

And I stumbled on something incredible.

We'll get to that right away. Stay tuned.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU is heavily inspired by the podcast ‘Limetown’, though future chapters will diverge from the plot of the show. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter!


End file.
